Cheaters....I am one.

Sometimes I wonder if the title is the dirty little hook that makes more of you come over and read than you normally would?  If so, then I bet your human curiosity jumped you right here faster than normal.

I hate to disappoint you, but I don't have a sordid tale of marital unfaithfulness wrought with awfulness and redemption to tell you.  About the worst side of cheating I've experienced personally was with a boyfriend in college who broke my heart into a million pieces when he told me he'd gotten some other girl pregnant and didn't think it necessary to tell me about it until after the baby was a month old....on Father's Day nonetheless.  I think all I did was cry to realize he'd cheated in the first place and then lied to me for an entire gestational period, but what I've always wished I'd said was "well, Happy Freaking Father's Day to you!"

I didn't say that though.

And I guess the other time I've felt cheating glare me in the face was walking with some friends through an affair that one of them had several years ago.  Next to losing babies, that was maybe one of the hardest things I've walked through in my life.  I do want to add that particular relationship has spent years on the road to beautiful restoration...but I know that the wreckage of cheating can span far and wide.  Our relationships with them, while still hugely precious to me, have never been the same...and that makes me sad.

But today...I am feeling like the big cheater.  And though it can't touch breaking of vows or months of long lies, I'm still feeling really horrible.

I'm having my hair cut by another person today.

I know...I know.  You just read that sentence and are thinking (particularly if you are a man) "Are you freaking kidding me?!  She's feeling guilty because she's having someone new cut her hair today?  Give me a break?!"

It's true though.  I literally woke up in the middle of the night feeling awful.  My friend who has cut my hair since COLLEGE didn't even start out as a friend...she was just the new girl who was good with color and trying to build clientele.  And she got the most loyal of customers out of me til today.  

I've been with this girl since she was a crazy raver with pink streaks in her hair and 4 inch platform shoes to now...and over all these years, she's morphed into the most unbelievable wife and mommy of 2 precious children.  I've gone from wide-eyed college grad to wife and mommy too...and she's walked it all with me.  We went from a couple of hours with foils in my hair to hours on the phone talking about the deeper questions in life.  When she was between salons, there were several occasions where I bent my head into the tub at her apartment and rinsed out bleach and color and foils over a glass of wine and way more time than it really takes to get a cut and color.

And here I am today....cheating.

It's not that I don't love Ang.  It's not that I think someone else will make my head more amazing than she can.  It's that since she's doing and being the thing she needs to be...awesome wife and mom...she only works now on Friday nights and Saturdays.  The truth is, that's just not when I want to get my hair cut.  And sure I'm a little intrigued to see what a new person might think about how to make my head look super cool...because this new person has a sweet sense of style and an adorable little shop downtown that even Ang would have a fit over.  And I'm curious.  And the time frame is more convenient.  And I'm not committing to a full on switch...it's just one cut.

But let's just be honest.  If the cut has for years been as much about the relationship as the actual hairstyle, then why isn't it now?  Why is getting a haircut on a Saturday suddenly inconvenient to me....when i know that once I'm in her chair I'll be glad for every single second of face-time.  And I don't know.  Maybe all the time and space that happens between us makes it harder to give up that precious time with my family all together?  Maybe I just like having Saturdays that are impromptu and unscheduled. Maybe it's "just my hair" and since I colored it back to natural, it's just not something that I want to spend lots of time messing with, so I go 6 months at a time between cuts, and more time and space happens because of it.

I don't know what it is, but I do know this....the relationship still matters to me.  And as with all the relationships in my life that seem to get pushed father aside as children begin to have their own schedules, and their own friends to tend, and vacations push times at home farther apart, and life gets busy....I miss it.  I miss the relationship.   It gets harder to tend something that gets farther and farther apart doesn't it?  And I wonder if I'm just too lazy to put in the time or if maybe I've just become a cheater?

I know it's just a haircut....but is it really?  Or is it really a bigger question in life that we can all ask ourselves and be aware of in friendships, and relationships, and marriage....

How much distance can we tolerate before we cheat?  And what kind of face time are we willing to put in to protect the things and the people who are important to us?  

One thing I find myself thinking is that I'm really glad that God is more faithful than I am.  

Psalm 36: 5 - Your love, LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies.